Madeleine Cruise is an emerging artist who creates sensational objects and abstract images that explore emotional experience in contemporary life. Driven by a desire to make complex situations tangible, her work investigates such themes as sexuality, relationships and social status, within a personal and broader social context. In a creative process that explores material equivalents between painting and sculpture, Madeleine creates immersive sensual and tactile environments for contemplation.

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Glorious Descent

Acrylic on canvas 60 x 40cm

Monday, June 7, 2010

Yesterday I pushed a trolley of butter. Today I supervised bowls of chips. Tomorrow....

Nothing makes me so different from the commuters in this painting. Maybe I push the trolley for something greater, maybe not. I too am just one of the ants, with a giant piece of bread on my back, shuffling back and forth. I make things, troublesome things, that take up space, cost money and argue with me - Ha ! they sound like naughty children. And this is why I push trolleys of butter ?

But then, I watch my fellow ants, their eyes hovering centimetres from their lunch plates and never wavering, pulling dry chicken off the bone and shovelling it in their mouth. My eyes wander to the dispenser of condiments, maybe I'll have jam with my cheese today ?At the end of the day the trolley pushers, the chip supervisors, the chicken eaters, go to the pub together - but I don't. Yet I push the trolleys and I supervise the chips and I make a dam good tea cup pyramid ! Maybe that's just it, I like tea cup pyramids

Should one, should anyone, aspire to not be in this painting ? They look unhappy, they look like victims, but do they know this ? Is ignorance bliss ? Is John Brack a bourgeois snob or just another type of victim ? Is there anything wrong with being an ant and can anyone ever really escape from the cogs that grind the society we live in ?

Within the cogs though there is beauty, not seen in this painting, but I see it sometimes. If I see it tomorrow I'll tell you.You need to live with eyes open to see it I guess.

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Artist Profile

Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Madeleine Cruise studied painting at the National Art School Sydney as a student of the Reg Row art Scholarship, graduating in 2009 with first class honours and the Fraser residency prize. Her continued studio practice has been supported through residencies with First Draft, The Bundanon Trust, The Banff Centre and Marrickville Garage. Madeleine has exhibited in solo and group shows in Australia and Canada and has been a finalist in the Waterhouse, Mosman and NSW Parliament en plein air art Prizes. In 2013 Madeleine co founded NANA contemporary art space in Newcastle, a not for profit art gallery that she directed for three years. Madeleine is part of public and private art collections in Australia and Canada including Artbank Australia.